


Capes and Cowls #3

by Vigs



Series: One Multiverse Over [6]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, F/M, Multiplicity/Plurality, Original DC reboot, Riddles and Cyphers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-08-21 18:48:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 11,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16582052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vigs/pseuds/Vigs
Summary: Oracle and Batman are still adjusting to working together when a new villain, driven by paranoia and the need to prove himself, kidnaps Robin and leaves a series of cryptic clues to his location.





	1. Oracle

**Author's Note:**

> CN: Babs uses a fake identity to chat with a bunch of techbro hacker jerks, so there's a lot of profanity and some casual misogyny in this chapter.

A full month after Barbara told Rick that she was Oracle, they still hadn’t caught the Scarecrow.

She’d been able to help with plenty of things, of course; even Batman grudgingly acknowledged that. (She still couldn’t quite figure out the way that sometimes he was Rick’s friendly adoptive dad and other times he was a humorless and demanding taskmaster. One of them had to be fake, right?) With her evidence, they’d gotten a few more corrupt cops off the GCPD—maybe even the last ones, at least for the moment. They’d been able to take down a few criminals thanks to her tracking their spending. Batman even admitted that having a third party tracking them and coordinating their comms during patrols was helpful.

But Scarecrow was too goddamn careful. He’d bought the chemical precursors to his fear gas in bulk already, enough to blanket Gotham twice over, so she couldn’t track purchases of the more unusual chemicals so that Batman could stake out delivery sites and find him that way. He ditched stolen credit card numbers as fast as she could track them back to him. And Batman and Robin didn’t have time for more conventional detective work because, on top of the normal background levels of crime in Gotham, they had to keep responding to random fear gas attacks.

Which meant that more and more people were getting pumped full of paranoia-magic, and they still didn’t have a fix for it. Batman’s magician friend still hadn’t come up with a permanent solution.

(Neither of them would actually tell her who the magician friend was, which she guessed was fair, but Rick had referred to him as “Z” once, and she had a few theories. Not that it was  _ easy _ to track down magic through the internet, especially since she’d only found out for sure that it existed a month ago, but she was starting to find some interesting stuff.)

Anyway, it was frustrating, and it kept her busier than she’d ever really been, but she had to find time to keep up her sockpuppets. She needed to keep up with—or preferably ahead of—any new developments in net sec and hacking, and there were only a few places where that kind of information was available. To keep her access to those places, sometimes she had to waste her time chatting with a bunch of assholes whose screen names were anagrams and memes. (Hers was NeverGonnaGive. Everyone was impressed that she’d managed to nab it before anyone else, although in fact she’d just taken over the deactivated account of the person who’d had it and then gotten tired of it.)

**doc_runnum** : Okay, I’m gonna bitch for a while, so strap the fuck in.

**whatyousay** : straps deployed, bitch away

**doc_runnum** : I

**doc_runnum** : fucking HATE

**doc_runnum** : living in Gotham.

**NeverGonnaGive** : so move

**doc_runnum** : I fucking wish

**doc_runnum** : I grew up in this dump

**doc_runnum** : Can’t wait until I finish my degree and I can get a job with LexCorp or Google or Amazon or something

**doc_runnum** : But in the meantime, runnum gots to get paid

**doc_runnum** : And Wayne Enterprises is the only place that does paid internships

**doc_runnum** : I mean I get it, nobody wants to give money to some asshole who doesn’t know what he’s doing, but they could give me a fucking test or something. I know more than most of the employees in this place.

**doc_runnum** : And WE has the most ass-backwards policies on everything

**doc_runnum** : Already got an official warning just for giving a bitch a compliment

**doc_runnum** : Anyway that’s why I’m stuck here and that’s why yesterday I got a nice big lungful of fear gas

**doc_runnum** : Let me tell you, shit sucks

**doc_runnum** : Okay </rant>

**whatyousay** : doesnt that shit make you hallucinate your worst fears?

**whatyousay** : whatyousee?

**doc_runnum** : You don’t just ask people that, you assclown

**NeverGonnaGive** : did you meet batman?

**doc_runnum** : Nah, I guess he gave the antidote to some cops and noped out of there

**doc_runnum** : Some pig with a mustache gave me the shot

The sympathy Barbara had been feeling for the guy—he must be stuck with the paranoia, since there were only nine amulets and some random civilian wasn’t going to get one—evaporated when she realized he may well have been describing her dad.

**NeverGonnaGive** : lol

**doc_runnum** : Anyway I’m kinda pissed at Batman. He’s supposed to keep this kind of shit from happening.

**doc_runnum** : I’m gonna hack his system. You know he must have some kind of database or something. I doubt it’s airgapped

**doc_runnum** : Bet LexCorp would give a signing bonus to the guy who tracked down Batman

**doc_runnum** : Who gives a shit about degrees when you have cred like that, right?

Barbara smiled to herself. He was welcome to try. She’d beefed up the net sec in the Cave to well beyond the cutting edge. Mr. “My screen name is an anagram for conundrum, aren’t I clever” would have an easier time trying to hack the NSA. Especially since he’d just warned her to keep an eye out for him.

**whatyousay** : yeah okay

**whatyousay** : lets back up a little though

**whatyousay** : youre still in college? i didnt realize we were letting babies in this chat

**NeverGonnaGive** : eh who gives a shit

**doc_runnum** : See this is the kind of shit I’m talking about

**doc_runnum** : Even you assholes underestimate me, and you’ve seen what I can do

**doc_runnum** : Everyone’s fucking underestimating me

**doc_runnum** : But I’m going to fix that

**doc_runnum** : I’m smarter than any of you, and soon you’ll know it.

**doc_runnum has signed off**

**whatyousay** : dude

**whatyousay** : is he gonna go become a supervillain or something?

**whatyousay** : thatd be kinda sweet if we knew a fucking supervillain

**NeverGonnaGive** : eh everyone says ominous shit sometimes

**NeverGonnaGive** : most people don’t actually become supervillains

**NeverGonnaGive** : and even if he tried hed probably just get caught

**NeverGonnaGive** : not really bragging rights if we just know a dude in prison

**whatyousay** : ngg you are such a fucking buzzkill sometimes

**NeverGonnaGive** : yeah well you can brag about it when you see The Mighty Buzzkill fighting superman on tv

**NeverGonnaGive** : I gotta head out though

**whatyousay** : lol

**whatyousay** : bye

Barbara logged off with a grimace. Sure, that one guy in that one chat probably wasn’t going to become a supervillain. At most, he might track down Batman’s computer presence, and she’d be surprised if he even got that far.

But more paranoid people meant more people afraid that they were being underestimated or laughed at, which meant more people with a desperate need to prove themselves, and that definitely could lead to more crime, possibly even of the “super” variety. She wasn’t sure where exactly the line was. Theming?

“O, we’re about to head out,” Rick said into her ear. They’d offered to give her an earpiece for their comms, but she’d made one she liked better. Theirs were designed to stay in if you got punched in the head; hers was designed to be unobtrusive. She could keep it in all day, even at school, without anyone noticing.

“Understood, R,” she said. She could hear the sound of the Batmobile speeding out of the cave. “Where are you headed tonight?”

“R’s doing a large-scale patrol. Pattern 7,” Batman said. He had ten different large-scale patrol patterns, and randomly selected one each night. “After he’s dropped me off by the docks. I got a tip that Maroni’s expecting a shipment. Probably guns.”

“I haven’t seen anything about that,” she said. “Could be a trap.”

“Hey, you’re good, but even you can’t track cash, O,” Rick said. “B knows what he’s doing.”

“Fair enough.”

Oracle pulled up the map of Gotham with blinking lights that indicated Batman and Robin’s current positions, and added an overlay of patrol pattern 7. If either of their trackers got somewhere they shouldn’t be without saying anything about it, she could alert the other to go back them up.

Honestly, Barbara didn’t know how they’d gotten by without her.

On her other monitor she logged into another of her sockpuppets. Maybe this one would hear something useful.


	2. Batman

Batman did not like having to wear the amulet Zatara gave him 24/7. The slight physical discomfort when he wore it under his body armor, which hadn’t been designed to leave room for jewelry, was the least of it. He didn’t leave it hanging in the center of the chest, of course, since that could turn a punch to the solar plexus from something he could shrug off in the suit to something truly serious; instead he secured it against his wrist, inside one of his gauntlets. Uncomfortable, but not dangerous.

Slightly more concerning was the fact that it wasn’t the sort of thing Bruce Wayne should be seen wearing. It could be hidden easily enough under clothing, but it definitely would have been occasion for comment if he’d taken his clothes off and left the amulet on, and he did have a habit of taking his clothes off in company. Bruce had called his usual partners and told them that they should get themselves tested for chlamydia, and that he wouldn’t be available until he’d finished his course of antibiotics, but that excuse had only lasted a month.

Bruce thought it wouldn’t be such a big risk for him to take the amulet off for a little while with someone he was comfortable with; Vicki Vale or Silver St. Cloud, maybe. Batman found the risk unacceptable, and he was the one in charge of security, so until Zatara came up with a less visible solution, Bruce’s job was to keep anyone from noticing his uncharacteristic celibacy. That was inconvenient, and disharmony between Bruce and Batman always made them less effective as a unit, but they’d weathered worse.

The worst thing was the constant reminder, always there against his skin, that there were forces Batman could not command or even comprehend. The information Zatanna had given him had been somewhat helpful, but all she could say to most of his follow-up questions was “I don’t know how to explain it if you can’t feel it,” which was extremely frustrating. He didn’t even have a way to test the accuracy of the information.

And of course, on top of all that, he was now supposed to implicitly trust a teenager who had made it clear that she still suspected him of abusing R. At least he could comprehend the upgrades she’d made to his network security, even if (much as he hated to admit it) he wouldn’t have thought of most of them.

There were many disciplines in which Batman trained, but he had to prioritize or he wouldn’t have time to do anything  _ but _ train. In his primary skills—hand-to-hand combat, stealth, and observation—he kept himself approximately one of the top ten in the world. Secondary skills, like thrown weapons and interrogation, he aimed to keep in the first percentile of experts. He had a sliding scale for other skills, adjusted as necessary when new threats arose. Biochemistry, for instance, hadn’t seemed like a particularly important discipline until Joker, Scarecrow, and Ivy all started using it against him.

Network security, both maintaining it and breaking it, was one of the disciplines in which he kept himself in the top ten percent of experts. Barbara was fifth percentile at the very least, most likely first percentile, and clearly on her way to top ten, despite her youth. Batman had the edge on her in hardware design, but a lot of that difference was because she always had to be budget-conscious; now that she had access to Batman’s resources, she was catching up quickly. It was as impressive as it was galling. He wondered whether Jim had any idea.

Their working relationship was largely based on the fact that both of them trusted and cared for Rick, who was very good at keeping things cordial. Mostly, they just didn’t interact without him present as a buffer.

One night, a week after he’d busted the Maroni shipment (which had turned out to be cocaine; not as satisfying to keep off the streets as guns would have been, but cutting off revenue streams for organized crime was always good), Oracle broke the pattern, staying on comms after Robin went to cool off from patrol.

“Okay, so before you get on the computer and see the alerts, I want to let you know that I have it all under control,” she said. “You don’t need to worry.”

He got on the computer and saw the alerts. He worried.

“Oracle, why is someone sniffing around the edges of my network?” he asked as calmly as possible.

“Because he found a big, extremely secure database with no clear connections to any corporate or government entity,” she said. “He’s not going to get in, though. Not even far enough to be sure that it’s connected to Batman.”

“How can you be sure?” he demanded.

“Because I know the guy. He’s good—I got a few of my best tricks from him—but he definitely isn’t as good as me.” She sighed. “He got hit with fear gas a week or so ago, and I think the paranoia has kind of taken an ‘I’ll show them, I’ll show them all’ turn with him.”

“Not unprecedented.” Batman forced himself to calm. The hacker had clearly been searching their perimeter for weaknesses, but hadn’t found any. He probably didn’t even realize he’d been noticed. “How do you know him?”

“Secret online hacking forum,” she said blithely. “He doesn’t know my identity, but I’m fairly sure I can narrow his down. I can do the search myself, but I thought you might prefer to; he’s a Wayne Enterprises intern.”

“Wayne Enterprises has several interns. They aren’t required to report fear gas exposure.” Although Bruce had made sure that anyone exposed wouldn’t have any trouble getting the company insurance policy to cover therapy and anti-anxiety medication, if they decided they wanted it. It wouldn’t counteract the effects, but it would make them easier to manage.

“That isn’t  _ all _ I have on him, jeez,” she said. “He’s a native Gothamite, or moved here at a young age, and he’s received at least one warning from WE for sexual harassment.”

“That does narrow it down. Anything else?” There were a few interns who fit those requirements. Wayne Enterprises had extremely strict policies on harassment, and new employees sometimes had trouble adjusting.

“Demographically, he’s male, still in college but may not be traditional college age, and almost certainly white, based on some of the shit I’ve seen him say,” she said. “Personality-wise, he’s extremely skilled but overconfident, actively misogynistic and casually racist, and notably fond of wordplay, riddles, anything that he can use to make himself look smart.”

“Mm. Narrows it down. I can find out for sure on Monday.” Bruce Wayne could look in on the interns, see how they were doing, see if any of them seemed to be simmering with paranoia and frustrated ego.

“I can keep pushing from this end, but like I said, he’s pretty good,” Oracle said. “And I’m afraid he might do something rash if he realizes someone’s poking around, so I’m being extra careful.”

“Understood.” Batman hesitated. “In this area, would you estimate that he’s more skilled than I am? Honest assessment.”

“Honestly? Probably,” she said. “I don’t think he would have been able to track it back to your real identity with how careful you are about that, but he probably could have gotten into your database before I upgraded the security.”

“I see,” he said. A bit grudgingly, he added, “Thank you.”

“Glad to do it,” she said. “If that’s everything, I’m going to get some sleep.”

“Understood.” He hesitated, not sure how to express himself. It was easy with Robin; Batman designed his training regimen. He wouldn’t be able to design a training program that would keep Oracle more skilled than he was. “Your expertise has proven extremely valuable. If handling comms for us starts cutting into your training time, let me know. We coordinated ourselves well enough before.”

“Thanks, B,” she said. “Don’t worry, though. I’ve got it covered.”

“Acknowledged. Batman out.”

Just had to trust her on that. Just had to trust Zatara, too. It was easier when he only had to trust himself, Bruce, Alfred, and Rick. He always knew what Bruce was thinking, he knew exactly what Alfred could do after all these years of experience, and he’d trained Rick himself.

Now he had to trust two more people (three, if you counted Zatanna), and some snot-nosed kid was trying to get into his system, and he  _ still couldn’t find the damn Scarecrow _ .

He wanted to grind the heels of his hands into his eyes, but he’d have to take off the cowl, and the backup mask he wore under it, and his gauntlets, and if he took off his gauntlets he’d need to get the amulet back around his neck, which meant he’d need to take off the Batsuit. Enough steps that by the time he’d made it possible, the urge may well have passed.

It wasn’t that he minded things being complicated. He led a complicated life; complicated was fine. It was just that the complications were increasingly variables over which he had no control.

Grudgingly, he began the process of changing for bed without ever letting the amulet lose contact with his skin.


	3. Robin

Having Babs—Oracle—on the team was  _ awesome _ .

Like, obviously Rick loved Bruce and Alfred, but being Robin was this huge part of his life; they’d been the only people who knew about it for such a long time, and nothing impressed them. It was all new to Babs. She started coming over after school once a week; Alfred would pick them both up in a car that had a seat in the back on one side and a space for her wheelchair on the other side, with a little powered platform that would lift her up and slide her into the car when she pressed a button, and as soon as the doors were closed they could start talking about  _ real shit _ .

She’d say something like “that fight on 5th last night sounded intense” and he could say “yeah, it was three guys with guns, but I disarmed two with batarangs before they even realized what was happening and then I jumped right on the third guy from the fire escape, it was great,” and she’d high-five him and then tell him about some awesome thing she’d done to make the Batcomputer even harder to hack, and he wouldn’t really understand that part but he was sure it was cool.

Not that there weren’t a few bumps along the way. The first few times Rick got banged up a little she’d started glaring daggers at Bruce and throwing around words like “abuse” and “endangerment” and “child soldier,” which was  _ not _ cool. Rick had eventually had to make an analogy to her disability to get her to start, which he hated doing, but it was the only thing that worked.

“You want me to believe you when you say that what you can do is more important than what you can’t?” he’d snapped. “Then believe me when I tell you that  _ this is what I want _ . Bruce would be over the goddamn  _ moon _ if I told him I wanted to stop getting in front of guys with guns, but I’m not going to. Stop casting me as a victim, because I know you hate it when people do it to you.”

She still glared at Bruce every time he got hurt, but she’d stopped it with the accusations.

And then, about two months after she joined the Bat-team, Rick offered to teach her to throw a batarang, because hey, there was nothing wrong with her arms and it could come in handy, and she’d calmly informed him that her dad had given her a Ruger LC9 handgun and trained her extensively in its use for the same reason. Her dad  _ didn’t _ know that one of the modifications she’d made to her chair was a hidden compartment in the metal frame that let her keep the gun on her at all times, even with metal detectors involved.

B had not been pleased.

“Concealed carry without a permit is a felony,” he growled.

“You commit felony assault pretty much every night,” she reminded him calmly. “The gun is hidden too well for someone to grab it off me—you two never spotted it—and I wouldn’t go for it if there was a threat at close quarters. I like to be prepared for emergencies.”

“Babs, handguns are for  _ killing _ people,” Rick said. “Let me teach you how to use batarangs, they’re a lot less lethal—”

“I’m already good enough with this to use it nonlethally. It’s better for intimidation than a batarang, and it wouldn’t tie me to you; everyone knows my dad’s a cop.” She had her chin up defiantly.

“You’ve been bringing a  _ gun _ into my home without my knowledge or permission,” B said. He loomed over Babs in a way that was clearly intentional.

“Yeah, and you bring your potentially lethal martial arts skills everywhere you go without anyone’s knowledge or permission,” she said, looking up at him… well, pretty calmly. About as calmly as you could expect anyone to respond to the Batman-loom. “I started carrying it when I started investigating a crime I thought was being committed by someone with enough power and influence to have me killed. I don’t think my life has gotten  _ less _ dangerous now that I’m working with Batman instead.”

“How quickly can you get it out and loaded?” B asked.

“Thirty seconds. I’ve drilled. I know how much ground someone can cover in thirty seconds, and I wouldn’t go for it unless they were farther away than that.”

“You say you’re good enough to use it non-lethally? Show me.” He pointed to the target set up for batarang practice all the way across the cave, right about at the limit of an LC9’s range.

Rick started to protest—it wasn’t a fair test—and B started to glare at him, but Babs didn’t hesitate. In thirty seconds, she had the gun in her hand and loaded, and fired three rounds right into the center of the target.

Weird as it was to hear gunfire in the Cave, Rick couldn’t help but be impressed. B was staring at the gun like he was resisting the urge to take it to pieces.

“Jim taught you,” he said, somewhere between a question and a statement.

“He started teaching me when I was a kid,” she said, removing the cartridge from the gun and stowing it away as quickly as she’d pulled it out. “Back when he and some masked weirdo started trying to get every crooked cop out of the force, including the ones that outranked him.”

There was a long silence. Rick itched to break it, but knew it wouldn’t help.

“No more taking it to school unless you know Rick won’t be there,” B said finally. “He can protect you nonlethally. No more bringing it here.”

“I agreed to help you, not to take orders from you—”

“Those are the terms if you want to be allowed in my home again.”

Babs paused, thinking it over. Rick gnawed the corner of his lip. He really liked having her over, and he didn’t think those were unreasonable terms, but she was  _ really _ stubborn…

She looked at the Batcomputer, and then at Rick, with a strange expression. He would almost have called it longing, which made sense when she was looking at more advanced hardware than she’d ever be able to afford on her own, but it was weird to see it directed at him. Whatever that look was, it felt like it hit him in the solar plexus, and he thought he might be blushing.

“Fine,” she said, turning back to Bruce. “I accept. Are you going to take my word for it, or are you going to search me every time I come over now?”

“I’ll take your word for it,” he said. “But maybe you should tell me what else you’ve got hidden in that chair.”

Babs grinned.

The answer turned out to be an entire PC (separated into components in various parts of the chair), a taser, a knife, a burner phone (she kept her usual phone in her backpack), three days’ worth of water and energy bars, zip ties (the kind that could be used as handcuffs in a pinch), small binoculars, one of those emergency blankets that folded down really small, a high-powered flashlight, a small but well-stocked first-aid kit, and a few pieces of electronics that Rick assumed were useful for hacking.

“Utility chair,” he said, impressed. Even he had assumed that the complicated bulk of Barbara’s chair was because she’d made it herself, customized so that it could switch between manual and electric modes. Apparently that wasn’t the half of it.

“Some of it’s just for if I get stuck in an elevator or something,” she said. “I’ve got some room if you’d give me some tracking devices and some of those antidote pills you have.”

Bruce stood up and walked away.

“He’s impressed too,” Rick stage-whispered to her. “He just really hates guns, is the thing.”

He came back in a moment with a handful of stick-on tracking devices, a small airgun to launch them with, and a pill kit.

“Fear gas, Joker gas, and Ivy’s pollen,” Bruce said, pointing at each of them in turn. “Two pills for anyone over a hundred pounds, one for anyone under. Memorize which is which, don’t label them. Fear gas antidote is safe to use as prophylaxis. The pollen antidote will cause lethargy and depressed mood, but it’s vastly preferable to exposure without the antidote—not that you’ll ever be anywhere near Ivy if I can help it. The Joker gas antidote is toxic if you don’t have Joker gas in your system, so don’t take it unless you’ve already been exposed. I can get you better binoculars, a better flashlight, and a better first-aid kit. Plus a gas mask, if you have room for it.”

“How big?” she asked, stowing the tracking devices and the pills.

“B got them to fold up pretty small,” Rick said, pulling his out to show it to her. “You’d need goggles too, though. We’ve got them built into our masks.” None of them mentioned that a mask wouldn’t be particularly helpful for her. “Teenage girl with bright red hair in a wheelchair” wasn’t a broad enough demographic for it to make much of a difference.

“I can fit that,” she said. “And goggles. Thanks.”

Bruce nodded.

So really, that went as well as anyone possibly could have expected. And now Robin was doing a rooftop patrol around Crime Alley while Batman did a full-city patrol in the Batmobile, and both of them had Oracle in their ear if they needed her. It was awesome.

Someone called for help, and Rick swung down to the rescue, expecting a mugging or something. But there was only one person there: a man in a green suit, a green bowler hat, a black tie with a green question mark on it, black gloves, and a black domino mask.

“Uh, can I help you?” Rick asked.

“Oh, I’m quite certain you can,” the man said.

That was the last thing Rick was aware of for a while.


	4. Batman

The bat-signal was on.

Batman had mixed feelings about the signal. On the one hand, it was appropriately ominous, reminding the whole city of his presence, and it let the police get in touch with him when they needed to. On the other, it was a little  _ bright _ for his tastes, and it opened Jim up to criticism—Batman was officially a criminal vigilante and the signal officially a malfunctioning searchlight, but everyone knew the cops were working with him.

It was also more than a little irritating to be  _ summoned _ . He preferred interactions to take place on his terms. But Jim had never abused the privilege, and had proved a valuable ally.

“O, R, the signal’s on,” he said as he steered towards the source of the light. “I’m headed to the station.”

“Understood,” Oracle said. “R, you’ve been in one place for a while. Everything okay?”

Silence on the line.

“Robin, report,” Batman ordered.

Silence.

“His tracker is still on 15th and—” Oracle started.

“Let me know if anything changes,” Batman said.

“You’re still going to the station? He could be bleeding out right now!”

“Robin can take care of himself. Whatever they want me for at the station could be related. Batman out.”

He really didn’t like having to explain himself. It had been ages since he’d needed to lay everything out for Robin; these days they were so in sync that one word, a hand signal, or even just a look was enough to get the idea across.

Robin was well-trained and resourceful. There were any number of reasons he could have gone off comms. In all probability, he was just fine.

Batman drove slightly faster.

“B, I found a security camera with a view of the current position of Robin’s tracker,” Oracle said a few minutes later, her voice trembling slightly. “I’m not sure, but it looks like his belt’s hanging from a streetlight, with something next to it that’s probably his cape tied so it holds the rest of his gear.”

“But no sign of him?”

“No. And it’s just a live feed, no recording. I can’t go back to whenever it happened.”

“Anyone nearby?”

“Not within view of the camera. It’s from a 24-hour convenience store, though, so there must be someone inside.”

Sometime he’d have to ask how she remotely accessed someone’s CCTV so quickly, but it could wait.

“Is his mask there?”

“Not that I could see, but it could be in the bag.”

No use jumping to conclusions. He needed more information, and the police might have it. He could pick up Robin’s gear after he’d talked to Jim.

“Let me know if it looks like anyone’s thinking about grabbing them.”

“Understood.”

She was doing a better job handling the emergency than he would have expected. He may not have given enough weight to the fact that a police officer’s daughter would be used to having people she cared about in dangerous situations, particularly in Gotham. Once the crisis was resolved, Bruce would have to let her know she’d done a good job.

Jim was the only one on the roof, so Batman didn’t bother sneaking up on him, just grappled up as efficiently as possible.

“Commissioner,” he said. “Still wearing the amulet?”

“Yeah, although I’ve gotta say, if I hadn’t felt the difference when I put it on I’d think you were messing with me.” He shook his head, clearly as frustrated by the whole thing as Batman was. “Magic, for crying out loud. Anyway, someone gave us a note for you, and I thought it might be important. Robin okay?”

“Missing,” Batman admitted. He scanned the note.

“I would have tossed it if it hadn’t been for the ‘little birdy’ part,” Jim said ruefully. “We get weird stuff all the time, and mostly it doesn’t mean anything—”

“Midnight,” Batman read. It was already 11:20.

“Any idea what the rest of it means?” The commissioner had been a detective, and Batman knew that he still hated being left in the dark, although he’d learned to accept it.

“It means I need to get going.” Batman jumped over the edge of the roof, getting back to the Batmobile as efficiently as possible, repeating the contents of the note to Oracle as he went.

> _ I proudly hold less than two Earths _
> 
> _ Hush now and don’t take a bite. _
> 
> _ If you don’t save your little birdy _
> 
> _ He’s sure to be dead by midnight. _
> 
> _ You will find the second clue _
> 
> _ When Virgil is finished with you. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so the riddles begin! There will be a total of three riddles and a cipher, each at the end of a chapter. If you'd like to try to figure out the solutions before they're posted, some (though not all) of them will require the knowledge that unless otherwise specified, Gotham is identical to our world's New York City. (Not that you have to live in New York to figure out the answers. I don't.) Good luck!


	5. Oracle

“It’s got to be the library,” Barbara said. “The main branch of the Gotham City library. I don’t know about the Virgil part, but that’s the first half.”

“Explain,” Batman demanded.

“Less than two Earths, and then the word bite? Earth, terra, terabytes. The main branch is the only one that has more than one terabyte worth of information, or would if you digitized its collection, but it still has less than two.”

“Seems probable. The part at the end must be telling us where in the library to look.”

“I see you from the security camera. Anything helpful with Robin’s stuff?”

“No bloodstains,” Batman said, and Barbara thought she detected a hint of relief in that gruff voice. “Faint odor of knockout gas. I’m dusting, but… no, just gloved fingerprints. No mask, at least, but all his electronics are here. They must have had an NLJD.”

“Those are expensive and hard to make. They put effort and resources into this,” Barbara said, impressed. NLJDs were used to find circuits, for things like bug detection. Maybe she should look into equipping some of their more vital and easily hidden gear with isolators, which would prevent that kind of detection. That hardly helped now, though.

“I’m going to have a chat with the convenience store clerk.”

While he did his whole intimidation routine—only briefly, as it quickly became clear that the clerk hadn’t seen anything—she looked up the reference in the last part of the… weird poem thing. “Virgil’s last work was the  _ Aeneid _ , so that’s probably it.”

“Doesn’t fit. According to tradition, Virgil never finished editing the  _ Aeneid _ ,” Batman said, getting back into the car. “And these days, he’s at least as well known as a character in Dante’s  _ Divine Comedy _ . If whoever left the note knows what they’re talking about, the second clue will be in Canto 30 of  _ Purgatorio _ .”

“Fair enough,” Barbara said. Ugh, it seemed like he knew more than she did about absolutely  _ everything _ but computers. It was frustrating. “I hope this little treasure hunt isn’t too long. Midnight—”

“It’s entirely possible that Robin will escape without our help,” Batman said. “I don’t think this is the work of anyone we’ve faced before. They’re likely to underestimate him.”

“Or they might have already killed him, and now they’re just trying to mess with you or trap you.”

“Possible.”

Barbara bit her lip while she listened to the sound of the Batmobile driving to the library. There had to be something better she could do than second-guess herself or bug Batman. Maybe she could approach the problem from another angle. B hadn’t been able to find fingerprints or anything, but the idea she was getting of this guy’s personality from the clue he’d left… from the fact that he was leaving clues at  _ all _ , even. Most people didn’t commit crimes and then set up treasure hunts.

He was smart, he was a computer nerd (and apparently a literature nerd too), and he wanted to prove how smart he was by going up against Batman. She’d put together a personality profile eerily reminiscent of that recently.

She hadn’t seen doc_runnum online in a while, but she and B had narrowed down his identity pretty definitively to Wayne Enterprises intern Edward Nashton. There wasn’t any evidence that he was the one doing this… but it definitely seemed like the kind of thing he would do.

But she didn’t have any way to test that theory, or any way to use that information if she did verify it.

She didn’t think he was a killer, but she knew what he was feeling right now—that paranoia, that fear that you weren’t good enough, or at least that no one thought you were good enough. The desperate need to prove yourself. Maybe he wouldn’t hold a gun on someone and pull the trigger, but she could imagine him setting up some kind of death trap, distancing himself from the murder just enough that he could tell himself it was Batman’s fault for not being smarter and faster.

Or maybe that was just what she wanted to think, because that made it much more likely that Rick was alive and would stay that way.

Barbara touched the amulet she kept tucked into the band of her bra, just to ensure that it was still there and still touching her skin. It was. She was afraid anyway. Bruce should have asked for something that would counter fear in general, not just the extra paranoia from that spell.

What would she do if Rick actually died?

Inevitably, it made her think about her mom. The two of them had spent so many evenings sitting around the kitchen table, Barbara with cocoa and her mom with tea, waiting to hear whether her dad was okay. Her dad, who had been one of the few clean cops on an infamously corrupt police force, who had been working with some masked weirdo who might snap and turn on him, who had spent so much of his time up against criminals who wanted to kill him, backed up only by those same crooked cops.

Her dad, who was still alive.

Barbara’s mom had thought the symptoms were just stress. By the time she was diagnosed, the cancer had spread from her colon to the rest of her body. She’d faded away before anyone could do anything about it, not killed by a mobster who wanted to send a message or anything else that they’d worried about but by her own body, turned traitor. There hadn’t been time for Barbara and her dad to sit around the kitchen table drinking hot drinks and worrying.

Barbara couldn’t stomach cocoa anymore, but some tea would be nice right about now. Her dad was still at the station; no one was there to hear her and ask why she was still up or why she looked so worried.

She couldn’t bring herself to leave the computer. Batman might need her. Rick might need her.

If life was a book or a movie, she’d be worrying that he’d die before she ever got a chance to tell him that she loved him. Like her crush was even important right now. Like telling someone you loved them would even help. People who were loved died all the time.

“I’ve got the next clue,” Batman said.

“In  _ Purgatorio _ ?”

“Yes.” At least he just read her the clue and didn’t rub it in or anything.

_ A brazen hussy standing by the bay, _

_ Her limbs astride for anyone who asks; _

_ She knows all about men wearing masks, _

_ And where my third ingenious clue may lay. _

_ She opens wide to any who can pay, _

_ Mother of Tourists. In her hand she grasps _

_ Archaic letters fit for history saps. _

_ Discover what those glyphs sixteen would say. _

 

_ The intersection that is mentioned twice, _

_ If cartoon-dead eyes you disregard, _

_ Holds the third clue between the beans and rice, _

_ Placed so its clever words will face the floor. _

_ I hope you don’t expect me to be nice; _

_ Red herrings wash up on the teeming shore. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My goal for these riddles is to make them difficult, but not impossible, to solve. I'm also hoping that once you see the reasoning for how the characters solve it, it'll make sense. A lot of the time, Riddler's riddles are either transparently easy, or they're nonsense and the solution is random word-association. Hope I'm doing okay.
> 
> As I said before, there will be a total of three riddles and a cipher, each at the end of a chapter. If you'd like to try to figure out the solutions before they're posted, some (though not all) of them will require the knowledge that unless otherwise specified, Gotham is identical to our world's New York City. (Not that you have to live in New York to figure out the answers. I don't.) Good luck!


	6. Alfred

It wasn’t as though Alfred was displeased with Miss Gordon’s addition to the whole Batman business. Quite the opposite, really; he hadn’t had a chance to get to know the girl well himself, but Master Rick was effusive in his praise, and even Batman had admitted to being impressed.

(As far as Alfred knew, he was the only one outside of Master Bruce’s head who was aware of the degree to which Master Bruce and Batman were separate individuals. Master Rick had  _ some _ idea, of course, but had never had it spelled out for him. Master Bruce had been planning to explain the situation to the boy right around the time of Mr. Dent’s accident; after that, he had resolved to keep it to himself. An unwise decision, in Alfred’s opinion, but an understandable one. Mr. Dent’s condition had certainly done no favours for the common perception that multiplicity meant danger and madness.)

However, her involvement did mean that Alfred was left out of the loop slightly more often. He used to be the one called upon for computer support; now he was not. It wasn’t entirely bad—he did have more than enough to do as it was, between directing the maintenance of the manor and grounds, keeping Master Bruce’s social schedule, assisting with the maintenance of Batman and Robin’s gear, stitching up cuts and bandaging sprains when necessary, and being the closest thing either Master Bruce or Master Rick had to a therapist—but it was sometimes difficult to keep himself convinced that no news was good news.

When the phone rang at half past eleven, on the line officially unconnected to Bruce Wayne—the one that Master Bruce or Master Rick could call if they were in the field and lost their communicators or needed to be picked up—he naturally feared the worst.

“Hello?” he said, answering. (Having to answer so informally itched at him a bit, but of course Batman insisted on it, and this was Batman’s phone line.)

“Hello, Alfred,” Zatara said, and Alfred felt a wave of relief. Not an emergency, then. “Could you put me through to Bruce? I haven’t found a permanent solution to his problem yet, but I do have something that might help.”

“Of course, Mr. Zatara. One moment, please.”

Alfred put the phone on hold and descended into the Cave. (He was tempted to take the elevator they’d installed for Miss Gordon—the underground chill did tend to make his knees ache on the stairs—but it would have been slightly slower, since he would have had to cross the manor first, and it wouldn’t do to keep Mr. Zatara waiting.)

He sat at the computer and put in an earpiece, connecting himself to their communications.

“Lots of clear references to the Statue of Liberty,” Batman was saying. “The part about an intersection that’s mentioned twice must be the red herring—”

“No, hang on, give me a second,” Oracle said. He could hear her typing. “Right, okay, the Statue of Liberty holds a tablet with July 4, 1776 written on it in Roman numerals. I think the statue  _ itself _ is the red herring, B. If I convert the letters on the tablet to hex, the ones that are mentioned twice are 4C, 43, and 58. 4th and 3rd isn’t a real intersection, and the 58s are the X’s—’cartoon-dead eyes’—so it has to be 4th and C. Let me see… yeah, there’s a grocery store there. That must be it.”

“Pardon me, Batman, Oracle—” he began.

“A moment, A,” Batman said. “O, you’re sure?”

“I wouldn’t be if the first one hadn’t had that programming reference in it,” she said. “But there are only fifteen characters on the plaque; ‘those glyphs sixteen’ has got to mean ‘those letters in hexadecimal.’ It all fits. And where would there be beans and rice at the Statue of Liberty?”

“Next to the red herring, I assume,” Batman muttered. “Alright, 4th and C it is.”

“You seem to be having an interesting evening,” Alfred commented.

“Robin’s been taken,” Batman said. “His captor left a series of clues leading us to him.”

“An unusual practice, but I suppose everyone needs a hobby,” Alfred said drily. He felt a pang of worry, of course, but Master Rick had been captured before. Generally he stayed put long enough to hear his captors’ plans before escaping and bringing them down.

“Al—A, they said they’d kill him at midnight,” Oracle said, clearly upset.

“Oracle, I share your concern,” he said gently. “But Robin has been in this sort of situation before. He is extremely competent, as are the two of you. I have every confidence that either he will escape or you will find him.”

Later—privately—he would let Master Bruce know that he would strongly prefer to be informed when there was a significantly greater than average level of mortal peril occurring, but this wasn’t the time.

“A, why are you on the line?” Batman asked flatly.

“You have a call from Z waiting,” Alfred said. “Shall I ask him to call back later?”

“Ask him if it’s time-sensitive,” Batman said. “Put him through if it is.”

Alfred muted his speaker on the communicator network, picked up the phone, and took the call off hold.

“Mr. Zatara, I’m afraid Master Bruce is rather busy at the moment. He requested that I ask if your call was time-sensitive,” he said.

“Unfortunately, yes,” Zatara said. “I’ve figured out a way to remove the paranoia from everyone who’s been affected so far, but I’ll need his help, and it has to be done at midnight. We can wait until tomorrow night, but that’s another full day everyone who’s been exposed will be feeling the effects.”

“Just a moment,” Alfred said, and relayed the message.

“Patch him through,” Batman said.

“One moment,” Alfred said, and muted himself again. “Mr. Zatara, I’m going to patch you through to Master Bruce’s field communications system. He and Oracle are on the line—she’s a computer specialist they began to work with recently. Please don’t use real names.”

“Of course,” Zatara said. Alfred put him through.

“Batman, I still don’t have a long-term solution, but I figured out a ritual to undo the damage that’s been done so far,” Zatara said. “But someone within the borders of Gotham will have to shatter one of those amulets at the stroke of midnight exactly.”

“We held one in reserve in case Robin got exposed,” Batman said. “A, you know where it is.”

“Yes, sir,” Alfred said. “I’ll coordinate with Z. A and Z out.”

He disconnected Zatara from the communications network and muted himself, but left his earpiece in. Confident as he was in Master Rick’s abilities, he would prefer to be able to hear for himself the moment the boy’s safety was assured.

“Mr. Zatara, what exactly will I need to do?” he asked.

“Break the amulet at midnight,” he repeated. “Midnight your time—Gotham is the focus of the spell, so we’re doing it on Gotham time.”

“How difficult will it be to break?” he asked. The amulet had been stored next to the refrigerator that held the latest batch of pre-filled syringes of fear toxin antidote. Even with refrigeration, they wouldn’t last long, but it hardly mattered, as common as the attacks were these days.

(“I’m at the store,” he heard Batman say in his other ear.

“Are beans and rice on the same shelf?” Miss Gordon asked hopefully.

“Looks like they’re right next to each other.”)

“It won’t be hard,” Zatara assured him. “Jet is a fairly breakable stone. A solid hit with a hammer or a mallet would do it. The important thing is the timing. I assume you have a radio clock?”

“Of course.” The Cave was equipped with both an atomic clock and a radio clock synchronized to one of the government-run atomic clocks, to be compared in case of time distortions. The setup had yet to prove necessary, but these days one never knew.

“Good. I’ll be using one too. If I finish the ritual and you break the amulet right at the stroke of midnight, everyone who’s already been exposed will have the effect undone,” Zatara said, “including Bruce. He can stop wearing the amulet unless he gets exposed again. It’ll still be effective if that does happen.”

“I’m certain he’ll be glad to hear it,” said Alfred. As would a number of young ladies whose calls Alfred had been fielding.

(“There’s definitely something here,” Batman said. “Too dark to read in here, though.”)

“I’ll call back after it’s finished to confirm that it worked,” Zatara said. “There shouldn’t be any dramatic effects visible on your end, although you may be unable to feel fear for a few moments after you’ve broken it. Don’t do anything dangerous.”

“I shall attempt to restrain myself,” Alfred said. “Thank you for your help, Mr. Zatara.”

“Of course. I need to go start the ritual. Give Bruce my best.”

“Indeed I shall,” Alfred said. “Goodbye.”

“You were right,” Batman said on the communicator. “It is the next clue.”

“What does it say?” Miss Gordon asked.

_ Go east, old man, to search the water. _

_ Seek to find Ailuro’s daughter. _

_ If you practice to deceive, _

_ You’ll find the key before you leave. _


	7. Oracle

“It’ll be in two parts, probably a cipher and a key,” Batman said. “Prospect Park Zoo, the red panda and spider exhibits.”

“Okay, I’m following you on all that except the red panda,” Barbara said. Prospect Park was east of his current location, searching the water could be considered “prospecting,” and the spider reference was obvious, but…

She looked up red pandas. Species name: Ailurus fulgens.

“Why do you have the taxonomic name for red pandas memorized?” she asked.

“You never know when a piece of information will come in handy,” he said drily. “Case in point.”

God, he was insufferable sometimes. Barbara started looking up types of ciphers with keys. Hopefully she could be useful once he found the next clue.

“Wish we knew how many more of these there were going to be,” she muttered.

“I doubt there will be too many more,” Batman said. “Whoever made these, they worked hard on them. They want it to be possible for us to succeed here, so that they can feel more smug if we fail.”

“I think it might be Edward Nashton,” she said. The impression the first clue had given her had only been strengthened by the others. Especially that second one, where he’d called the Statue of Liberty a slut or whatever.

“The thought crossed my mind. No hard evidence yet, though, and I doubt he’s keeping Robin at his apartment, so there’s not much we can do with it.”

“Right. Well, let me know when you’ve got the next one,” she said.

She couldn’t stand just sitting and waiting while he drove. She spent a little bit of time looking up ciphers that had keys, but he was still driving when she’d finished. Even Batman couldn’t get around in Gotham instantaneously, and the zoo was in the middle of a park, with nothing to grapple from.

“You met Nashton in person, right? What kind of read did you get on him?” she asked.

“Only briefly,” Batman said. “He definitely seemed like he thought he was the smartest person in the room. Not much beyond that.”

“Even when he was in a room with—”

“No identifying details on the comms,” Batman snapped.

“Just because I hacked them doesn’t mean anybody else could,” she grumbled. “Especially now that I’ve strengthened the encryption.”

“You’re good. I believe you that you’re better than Nashton. But you aren’t the best, and for all we know, the best is listening in right now,” he said, implacable.

“Okay, okay.” She racked her brains for something she could do. “I could call Nashton on my burner.”

“What exactly do you think that would achieve?”

“I don’t know,” she snapped. “I just… I feel useless, okay? I care about Robin, and he’s in danger, and there’s nothing I can do.”

“You’ve been extremely helpful, Oracle,” Batman said matter-of-factly. “I might still be stuck on that ‘terabyte’ pun without you. Or I’d be searching the Statue of Liberty right now.”

He didn’t frequently give praise when he was in Batman-mode, which he clearly was at the moment.

“Thanks,” she said. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t snap at you. I’m just his friend, you’re—”

“Are you?”

“Huh?”

“Just his friend.”

“What do you…” Oracle paused. “Are you asking what my intentions towards Robin are?  _ Now? _ ”

“You seemed to need to talk,” he said. “I’m accommodating you.”

“You’re kind of an asshole,” she informed him.

“I’m aware.” He paused. “Oracle. I have every confidence that Robin will be fine. But if he isn’t—”

“Don’t say that,” she said.

“If he isn’t, now or at some point in the future, I may become… unstable. Possibly indefinitely.”

“You mean more than you already—”

“Yes.” His voice was concerningly matter-of-fact. “If that should happen, I encourage you to assist the police in apprehending me, if you feel that it’s necessary.”

Barbara did not have a response for that.

“As I said, I don’t think it’s a likely scenario,” he said. “But you’re aware that I like to have contingency plans in place. Robin is my contingency plan for… dealing with me if I need to be dealt with. My plan for what to do if he was unavailable under those circumstances was previously lacking.”

“And you’re telling me this now at least as much because you don’t want Robin to overhear as because he’s in danger,” she realized.

Batman didn’t respond. She heard the car door open and close. His tracker showed that he’d reached the zoo, which meant the conversation was over.

...and he’d probably also planned things so it would work out like that. He was  _ such an asshole _ .

By the time Batman got ahold of both parts of the cipher, it was 11:48.

“The paper at the red panda exhibit says ‘riddle me this,’ all one word,” he said. “The other one is apparently random letters. Do you know the NATO phonetic alphabet?”

“That’s Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, and so on, right?” she asked. “I know it okay. Read slow.”

He read the list of letters off just slowly enough that she could keep up and type them all.

“...Victor,” she repeated. “Okay, let’s see…

_ RIDDLEMETHIS _

_ AEAWXQCPFTXV _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the short chapter... trying to get each riddle to come in exactly at the end of a chapter ended up being trickier than I expected. If you need something to do before Wednesday, you could always try and solve the cipher! =P


	8. Batman

“If the key is ‘RIDDLEMETHIS’ and it’s a Vigenère cipher, we just need to—” Oracle started.

“No,” Batman interrupted. “He said the key would be at the spider house.”

“But the one from the spider house is just nonsense.”

“Right. Because he wants us to waste time decrypting it the wrong way.”

“Okay, well, I found a Vigenère solver online, so we can try it both ways,” Oracle said. “I guess he didn’t think you’d have somebody sitting at a computer helping.”

“Probably not.” And it was lucky that he did. He could solve a Vigenère cipher by hand, but it took time, and if he’d guessed wrong about which was the key…

“Yeah, you were right,” Oracle said after a moment. “Red Hook Pool. Well, REDHOOKPOOLX, all one word. Using ‘RIDDLEMETHIS’ as the key and the other one as the cipher is… yeah, just gibberish.”

“Right.” An outdoor pool, not far away. He’d get there before midnight, but if there was just another clue there…

No, the person who had set this up—whether it was Nashton or not—had clearly intended it as an intelligence test. It had to be winnable, and he and Oracle had been solving the clues about as fast as anyone possibly could have.

Of course, he didn’t know when the first note had been left with the police, how long it had taken for it to get to Jim, or how long Jim had waited before turning on the Batsignal. He did not mention these concerns to Oracle.

Fortunately, he arrived at the pool four minutes before midnight, and it was quickly apparent that there was not yet another clue to get through. Robin was in the center of the pool, tied up on some sort of inflatable rubber raft and shivering in his wet uniform in the freezing January air. Batman frowned. He should have been able to get himself out of that…

Ah. There were two electrical devices dangling in the water, one on either side of the raft. It looked like a modified electrofishing setup. It would be difficult for Robin to get himself untied, let alone out of the pool, without touching the water at all, and presumably the electrical current was strong enough that touching the water would lead to unconsciousness or death.

“I found Robin,” Batman said quietly to Oracle. “No sign of his captor.”

“So… probably a trap, then?” she asked.

“Presumably.”

Someone dressed all in green came out of the poolhouse.

“Three minutes left,” he said. That was definitely Nashton’s voice; he recognized it from when he’d checked on the interns. “Looks like the famed Dark Knight Detective can’t detect quite fast enough.”

“He’s probably already here,” Robin said. Good—he was conscious.

“So you’ve been saying. And yet for some reason, he’s left you in your current predicament,” Nashton gloated.

“Robin’s conscious,” Bruce told Oracle quietly. “And it’s definitely Nashton.”

“From what I know of him, he might not even have a plan for what to do if you show up,” she said. “But he might throw a tantrum, and that could be dangerous.”

“Noted.”

Unfortunately, despite Nashton’s overconfidence, he was standing in a clear enough area that it would be difficult to just knock him down before he could see Batman coming—at least, not from an angle that would keep him from falling in the pool and potentially frying himself. Knocking him out with a batarang could have the same effect. Unacceptable.

(There were lines he couldn’t cross, because if he crossed them he would just keep going, there would be nothing holding him back but his contingency plans, and his contingency plans were one old man and two teenagers—)

“Two and a half minutes,” Nashton said cheerfully. “And then, pop! goes your floatie and zap! goes your heart, and the Riddler gets away clean. What do you think Batman will do when he finds your corpse?”

“You’re really going with ‘Riddler’?” Robin asked. “No, better question—what does a bright green bowler hat have to do with riddles?”

“It’s Batman’s fault that you need an aesthetic if you want to be taken seriously in this town,” Nashton—Riddler—snapped. “I’d say blame him, but you’re never going to see him again.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Batman said, pitching his voice so it would echo between the buildings around them.

“Batman?” Riddler looked shocked. He really hadn’t expected him to get there. “What did—how did you—”

“I told you,” Robin said smugly. He crossed his arms—apparently he’d only been pretending that he was still bound.

“Turn off the electrofishers,” Batman said. “Unless you’d like to go for a very short swim.”

“You must have cheated!” Riddler insisted. “You had a drone following Robin the whole time, or you used a spy satellite instead of following my clues, or—”

“Gotham Library’s copy of  _Purgatorio_. The grocery store at 4th and C. The red panda and spider exhibits at the Prospect Park Zoo. Red Hook Pool X,” Batman listed. Riddler got paler with every item. “Turn. Them. Off.”

Riddler turned and ran.

Batman swung down to the side of the pool on a grapple line and examined the electrofishing setup. It was certainly clever—as was the device attached to the floating raft next to Robin, clearly poised to pop it at midnight.

“Boy, am I glad to see you,” Robin said.

“Are you injured?” Batman asked, searching for the safest way to deactivate the electrofishers. There were no obvious traps; it was clear Nashton didn’t expect him to get there in time. Batman unplugged them.

“A little stiff,” Robin said. “And a little woozy from the gas—I think he used too much. But nothing serious.”

“The water should be safe now,” Batman said. Just to be sure, he pulled the rods that had been creating the charge out of the pool.

“Cool.” Robin began untying his legs. “Did you find my stuff?”

“In the Batmobile,” Batman said, pointing in the direction where he’d parked it.

“Cool. I can take it from here. You get the guy.”

Batman nodded and shot a grapple line in the direction Nashton had gone, swinging after him.

The self-proclaimed Riddler was almost disappointingly easy to find. It appeared that he had just... run, with no thought of looking for cover or even changing directions.

He shrieked when Batman landed in front of him.

“It doesn’t make sense,” he said, practically passive while Batman cuffed him. “It would have taken  _me_ nearly that long to follow those clues. You’re just some thug.”

“Tell him you had help,” Oracle said, sounding vicious. “Tell him you had help from a  _girl_.”

Batman considered. It didn’t seem like too much of a security risk.

“I did have someone helping me,” he informed Nashton. “She’s very intelligent.”

“ _She_? A gymrat in a Halloween costume and some bimbo beat  _my_ riddles?” He seemed even more appalled than before. “No. It doesn’t make sense. You… you have superpowers or something. Teleportation, mind-reading, a psychic link with Robin. Something.”

“That’s for me to know and you to never find out,” Batman said. He tied the Riddler to a lamp post and made his exit.

“O, you there?” he heard Robin say on the comms.

“R! I’m so glad you’re okay!” she replied. Batman was grudgingly impressed that she hadn’t slipped on the name.

“Not as glad as I am. Listen, we need to talk, okay? I had a lot of time to think while I was tied up on that raft, and I just… we need to talk.”

“That sounds good,” Oracle said.

“Keep it off the communicators,” Batman said. He called Jim from a burner phone to report Nashton’s location. They wouldn’t be able to get kidnapping charges to stick, not without Robin appearing in court (which obviously wasn’t an option), but putting electrofishers in a public pool, even if it only had water in it out of season because you’d filled it yourself, was still attempted homicide.

“Glad to hear the kid’s okay,” Gordon said. Batman knew he’d always been a bit skeptical of the idea of involving a minor in dangerous work, but he liked Robin. “We’ll pick up this Nashton creep.”

“You should also know: as of midnight tonight, anyone who was exposed to Scarecrow gas previously should be free of the induced paranoia.”

“You mean I can stop wearing this damn necklace?” Jim said, clearly relieved. “That is good news. The station’s been so jumpy I’ve thought about locking up all the sidearms.”

“Re-exposure will create the same condition again,” Batman warned. “It’s not a permanent fix. I still have someone working on that.”

“Right. Your magician friend,” Jim said in the tone of someone who couldn’t quite believe his own words. “I swear this city gets weirder every year.”

“I’ve been told it’s my influence,” Batman said drily.

“Well, it gets safer every year too, and I know that’s you,” Jim said. “Weird’s not so bad.”

“Mm. Until next time, Commissioner.” He hung up, and threw the phone into a nearby dumpster. Jim was a friend, but you could never be too careful.

Robin was doing stretches outside the Batmobile when he returned. He’d changed into dry clothing—they kept spare suits in the car for emergencies like this—but he was clearly still cold, possibly even mildly hypothermic.

“Can’t believe I let that dingus get the drop on me,” he said. He sounded unshaken. “Sorry, B.”

“Don’t apologize; tell me what you’ll do better next time,” Batman instructed. “But first, call A.”

“On it.”

Batman listened to the two talk the whole drive home—apparently the ritual had gone off without a hitch, and he could stop wearing that damn amulet unless he got gassed again. Inwardly, Bruce smiled.


	9. Robin

The whole Riddler thing was on a Saturday night. Rick pretty much passed out as soon as they got home; that had definitely been too much knockout gas.

Babs came over on Sunday.

It had all seemed really simple while he’d been lying on that pool float, distracting himself from his predicament by thinking about her. He’d get rescued, he’d tell her they needed to talk, he’d ask her to be his girlfriend, and everything would be great.

Somehow that second-to-last part seemed harder when they were actually in the same room. They were doing math homework. It wasn’t exactly romantic.

Rick had dated before. It had never been hard. It was just “hey, want to go from being friends to being friends-who-make-out-sometimes?” They’d go to the movies or out to dinner a couple times, they’d make out a bunch, she’d get frustrated with how rarely he was available, they’d break up more or less amicably and life would go on.

He couldn’t imagine breaking up more or less amicably with Babs. He wasn’t sure life would go on after that. And, well, they couldn’t break up if they never started dating, so maybe starting was a bad idea?

He sighed. Yeah, even he knew that logic was bullshit.

“Need help?” Babs asked, and for a second he thought she’d figured everything out—she was ridiculously smart, it could happen—and was offering to help him ask herself out. Then he realized he’d been staring at his math textbook for kind of a while without writing anything.

“No, no, I’ve got it,” he said, and got to work on the first problem.

The thing was, he’d dated other girls because they were fun to hang out with (although not as fun as Babs) or because they were hot (a couple of them had been models, and oh _man_ had B had a talk with him about that, a whole lecture about how using someone for their looks wasn’t the same as using them for their money because you needed money to live and the modeling industry chewed girls up and spat them out with little to no education, very limited work experience, and no retirement plan other than “try to marry a rich guy” and how Rick had to make sure they weren’t expecting _him_ to be their retirement plan because leading them on would be cruel) and okay, he was getting off track, but the thing was that he’d dated other girls for fun.

Not that dating Babs wouldn’t be fun; he was positive it would be. Maybe it would be more accurate to say that he’d dated other girls _just_ for fun. His fun and their fun both, he wasn’t an asshole or anything. They’d always had fun and he’d always been clear that he wanted to keep things pretty casual.

He didn’t want to keep things casual with Babs.

Was this why B kept going for women like Catwoman and freakin’ Talia al Ghul? Because they were the only ones who saw both sides of him, who knew what he’d devoted himself to? Rick hadn’t understood before, but knowing that Babs knew about the time he spent under the mask and liked that part of him too… it was addictive.

And hey, she wasn’t even a criminal! Well, okay, she was a hacker, but apparently that fell into the category of “crimes that are okay if you’re doing them for a good reason.” (Like assault! B’s rules were kind of weird when you thought about them.)

He’d actually be able to tell her when he couldn’t get together because he had training or patrol. She’d _be there_ when he had patrol, not physically next to him but right there in his ear. She’d helped save his life.

He might be kind of a little bit totally in love with her.

“Rick,” she said.

“Yeah?” He really liked her voice. And her hair. And her eyes. And the rest of her.

“You said we needed to talk.”

“Oh, uh. Yeah.” He swallowed. “We can finish our homework first, though?”

“Well, that’s what I was thinking, but you’re still on the first problem, and I’d like to actually have that conversation sometime this week.” Her voice was as confident as ever, but something in her face seemed unsure. “I’ll tell you right now, though, if you decided that being involved in this whole Batman thing is too dangerous for me—”

“What? No! No, jeez, Babs, I’m not trying to kick you out,” he reassured her. “Sort of… the opposite.”

“I don’t think I’d make a very good Robin,” she said with a wry smile. “The colors would completely clash with my hair.”

“No, I…” Dammit, why was this so hard? “It’s not about that at all. Or, well, it sort of is, but only because I really like how I can share that part of my life with you. Not that I didn’t already like you before, because I definitely did. But it’s like, we were both hiding parts of ourselves, and now we’ve seen them and it’s awesome.”

...aaaand now he sounded like he was talking about them getting naked together. Not that he would be opposed to the idea, but it wasn’t really where he wanted to start this conversation.

“Listen, whatever you wanted to tell me, you’re overthinking it,” she said. “I get it, you know? I already liked you when it was just the two of us at the lunch table, but it’s on a whole new level now.”

“Right! Yes, exactly,” he said. “And I thought maybe _we_ could be on a whole new level, if you want. Because I like you a lot. And you’re really pretty. I don’t think I’ve ever told you that, have I? I know I’ve thought about it, but I always figured you’d think I was bullshitting you. But there’s no more bullshit, and you’re beautiful, and I really like you.”

“I really like you too,” she said. Oh gosh, was she actually blushing? She was totally blushing. Rick was pretty sure that was a good sign.

“Cool,” he said happily.

“So uh, just to be clear, were you asking to be my boyfriend?” Babs asked after a moment.

“Right! Yes. That’s what I was doing,” he confirmed.

“You’re lucky you’re cute,” she said fondly, “since clearly I’m the brains of this relationship.”

“Is that a yes?”

“You know I’ve never had a boyfriend before, right?” she asked. “And physical stuff is going to be… complicated. I've read stuff by other disabled people, but it’ll mostly be trial and error.”

“We’ll figure it out,” he said. “I mean, if you want to. Whatever you want figured out, we’ll figure out.”

“Cool,” she said, and grinned. “Want to figure out kissing?”

“Heck yes I do.”

It didn’t end up being all that hard to figure out, but they spent a good long while practicing anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~I'm kind of absurdly proud of myself for how adorable this chapter turned out.~~
> 
> First actual relationship in this series established! Woo! Just as a forewarning, there's going to be explicit sex later in this series (in the very next installment, in fact) but I'm not going to write any explicit sex between minors. This is just a personal choice—I don't think it's wrong for 17-year-olds to fuck (I did! No regrets here!) or for adults to write about it, as long as they aren't actually condoning adults having sexual contact with minors—but I'm 28 and it feels weird, so... yeah. Not that they're going to jump straight into fucking in any case. Go at your own pace, any kids who may be reading!
> 
> ...I didn't mean for this author's note to turn into a PSA, but this is the world we're living in now.


End file.
